Is This the Most Insane N.R.A. Ad Ever? Yes, Yes, Definitely Yes

“Are the president's kids more important than yours?” so begins a new video advertisement from the National Rifle Association timed to coincide with the president’s gun-policy announcement later today. “Then why is he skeptical about putting armed security in our schools, when his kids are protected by armed guards at their school.” We genuinely cannot tell if this is a rhetorical question. Does the N.R.A. truly not know why the daughters of the president require a personal security detail but other children do not? Wait, wait: our question about the N.R.A.’s question is not rhetorical either! You’re like, “VF.com, obviously the N.R.A. understands that safety of the First Daughters is a national security issue and the First Family must receive death threats all the time, the organization is simply stretching a tenuous metaphor within an inch of its life, but intellectually, the N.R.A., like, gets it.” But is that really what’s going on? Not so fast, we say, not so fast.

First of all, it was not a typo that our transcription of the ad’s question did not conclude with a question mark. The “rhetorical question” was not even punctuated like an interrogative! We know this for sure because the N.R.A. did us the honor of subtitling the narrator’s speech, and we can see the period at the end of the sentence for ourselves.

Next point: the ad refers to Obama, Joe Biden, Michael Bloomberg, Dianne Feinstein, and David Gregory—yes, private citizen David Gregory—as “elitist hypocrites” and ends thusly: “Protection for their kids, and gun-free zones for ours.”

Show of hands: is there anyone who does not believe the family of the president should be protected by armed guards? Keep your hands raised if you also think that a “gun-free zone” is not a hospitable or desirable environment for children? (“I like my kid’s preschool,” you recently said to friends over cosmopolitans, “but I just wish there were more assault rifles around, you know? Something to give me some peace of mind.”) Anyone’s hands up? Anyone want to raise her hands but unable to do so because of all the guns she’s carrying?